


Hard Candy

by akire_yta



Series: prompt ficlets [212]
Category: Agent Carter (TV), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 03:05:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5523074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akire_yta/pseuds/akire_yta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>prompt-ficathon -- cosmictuesdays Asked: Agent Carter - to Angie, Tony is just a little boy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hard Candy

When Tony is four, the nannies comb his hair and tie his tie for him, and triple check his pockets for contraband before he is ejected out of the safety of the hall and into the presence of his father and the other adults.  His father’s hand is rough on his head, but Aunt Peggy gives him a wink over the table, and the lady sitting across from her slips him a fistful of candy while everyone else is distracted.

When Tony turns six, his father throws a party, a handful of children playing quietly on the deck while a larger group of adults drink on the balcony above them.  Tony squints against the sun, and waves at the familiar lady who waves down at him.  She and Aunt Peggy then disappear for a moment, before returning to eject something over the balcony that deploys its own parachute to land gently at his feet.  He spends most of the rest of the party figuring out the deployment system, and only opens the actual box at Jarvis’ gentle prompt.  But by then, Aunt Peggy and her friend are gone.

When Tony is ten, there is a lady in the back of the car when Jarvis opens the door for him to clamber inside, safe away from the hell of a boarding school his father had banished him to.  “Hey squirt, remember me?”  Tony can’t remember her name, but he remembers the candies, and they munch on them all the way back to the city, and she never once looks bored at Tony’s babbling, increasingly sugar-fueled ramblings about the designs that were slowly crowding out every other thought in his head.

She reappears throughout the years; a figure at a party giving him a wink, a fistful of candy, later a pilfered nip of something stronger.  She came to dinner sometimes; sometimes Tony saw her face on a movie poster, and had to resist the urge to wave. 

She came to the funeral, and stood behind him, and never uttered a single platitude.

Tony found the best retirement home, more like a hotel resort than a place to wait to die.  She kept candies in a crystal jar by her bed, and insisted Tony always take a handful, her voice fading from a confident, brassy laugh to a faint whisper.  “You’ve gotten so big, Tony,” she murmured, her skin like paper where he hand rested against his cheek.  “So handsome.  Not like your father.”

It was the last thing she said to him before she died.  Tony sometimes thought it the nicest thing anyone ever said to him.

Everyone at the funeral stared at him as he scattered a handful of hard candies, rather than dirt, across her coffin.  He ignored them all and went to find a drink.


End file.
